MODERNIST  STUDIES 
IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS 


RAY  O.  MILLER 


B5242I 
MG4 


DEC  1 0  1917 


Srttfoa     .M6  4 


MODERNIST  STUDIES 
IN  THE   LIFE  OF  JESUS 


BY 


RAY  OAKLEY  MILLER 


DEC  1 0  1917 


iiimx  ^ 


BOSTON 

SHERMAN,  FRENCH  &  COMPANY 

1917 


CoPYHIGHT,    1917 

Sherman,  French  <Sr»  Ck)MPANY 


TO 

MY  MOTHER 

A  FREE  AND  SURE  BELIEVER 


INTRODUCTION 

This  little  book  is  published  only  as  a  point 
of  view.  But  "  the  point  of  view  "  is  to  the 
author's  mind  everything.  What  he  does  claim 
is  that  the  point  of  view  herein  put  forth  is  the 
point  of  view  that  men  are  more  and  more 
likely  to  take  with  reference  to  any  study  of 
the  life  of  Jesus.  Rational  and  scientific  tests 
are  being  applied  to  every  domain  of  study ; 
and  by  the  word  "  Modernist  "  the  author  sim- 
ply means  a  use  of  those  tests  in  religious 
thinking,  not,  he  hopes,  without  a  genuine 
sympathy  for,  and  an  appreciation  and  ap- 
propriation of,  the  fundamental  elements  of 
idealism  and  faith. 

He  dares  even  hope  that  such  an  attitude 
will  make  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  a  more  vital 
(if  radical),  forward-moving,  and  comprehen- 
sive force  in  the  advancement  of  humanity. 
He  sincerely  believes  that  such  an  attitude  is  in 
keeping  with  the  wish  of  him  who  said,  "  Ye 
shall  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make 
you  free." 

And,  because  he  believes  this,  he  thinks  that 


INTRODUCTION 

the  religion  of  Jesus  offers  a  more  tremendous 
challenge  and  demands  a  more  vital  allegiance 
than  any  yet  given.  The  way-out  for  human- 
ity is  to  be  found  in  maximums  rather  than 
minimums.  It  lies  in  the  direction  of  progress. 
Its  method  would  be  as  abrupt  as  love  and 
righteousness.  It  would,  perchance,  have  about 
it  something  of  the  pangs  of  being  born,  but 
such  things  would  be  mere  incidents  in  a  life, 
dhrnie  m  its  very  essence  and  eternal  in  its  first 
conscious  assumptions. 

Ray  Oakley  Miller. 


PREFATORY 
AN  AGE  OF  FAITH 

Perhaps  never  before  were  thinking  people  so 
intent  upon  finding  the  basic  principles  of  their 
religion.  It  is  not  a  question  of  some  specific 
dogma,  or  indeed  of  any  dogma.  What  we  are 
finding  out  is  that  the  Church  was  never  so 
weak  ethically,  socially,  and  spiritually  as  when 
her  dogmas  were  strongest  —  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  She  was  never  so  strong,  nor  so  vital, 
a  factor  in  the  forward-moving  processes  of 
civilization  as  today,  when  her  dogmas  are 
honey-combed  with  analysis,  modernism,  and 
variation. 

This  is  an  age  of  Faith.  We  sometimes  hear 
the  Middle  Ages  referred  to  as  "  Ages  of 
Faith."  They  were  not  at  all.  They  were 
ages  of  unfaith,  ages  of  dogma,  when  every- 
thing was  fixed,  static,  divinely  appointed.  Our 
age  is  an  age  of  Faith.  It  believes  things.  It 
believes  in  doing  things.     It  tries  out  its  faith. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I     The  Problem 1 

The  Wanderlust 3 

II     Transient  Elements  in  the  Life  of 

Jesus 4 

Sins  of  Omission 11 

III     Permanent  Elements  in  the  Life  of 

Jesus 12 

The  Voluntary  Basis  of  Religion      .  20 

IV     Jesus  and  Authority 21 

Pitfalls 30 

V     Jesus  as  the  Fulfiller        ....  31 

God  Personal 40 

VI     Jesus  and  the  Religion  of  Tomorrow  41 

A   Liberal   Faith 52 


CHAPTER  I 
THE  PROBLEM 

To  some  the  Christian  life  is  simply  imita- 
tive. There  were  no  elements  of  a  transient 
nature  in  Jesus,  nor  is  any  event  in  his  life, 
however  insignificant,  to  be  slurred  over.  The 
incident  of  feet-washing  is  as  permanent  as 
baptism ;  the  apocalyptic  visions  are  as  valua- 
ble as  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount ;  and  incidental 
expressions  about  the  cosmogony  of  the  uni- 
verse are  just  as  binding  as  the  immortality  of 
the  soul.  If  we  pick  up  certain  books  on  the- 
ology, or  popular  sermons,  there  is  in  them  all 
an  evident  "  trekking  "  of  the  Bible  and  the  life 
of  Jesus.  To  all  such  the  very  mention  of  our 
subject  borders  on  blasphemy;  even  the  "hem 
of  his  garment  "  is  sacred  and  permanent. 

There  are  others  who  find  the  very  reality 
and  permanency  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  in  the 
fact  that  they  are  mixed  up  with  other  things 
patently  transient  and  even  superficial.  In- 
deed, the  whole  effect  of  Modernism  has  been 
concerned  in  distinguishing  between  these  two 
elements  in  the  life  of  Jesus,  and  in  fitting  these 


2  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

permanent  elements  into  the  warp  and  woof  of 
our  present  age.  In  the  main,  I  think,  the 
effort  has  been  reverent  and  sincere,  and  the 
outcome  fruitful.  Religion  has  become  less 
antique  and  more  efficient,  less  traditional  and 
more  ethical,  less  burdened  with  mechanical 
theories  and  more  dynamic.  However,  that 
depends,  too !  Let  us  begin  with  the  transient 
elements. 


THE  WANDERLUST 

The  Germans  have  a  word  for  those  who  are 
never  able  to  be  satisfied  —  wanderlust.  And 
in  a  real  sense,  of  course,  we  should  all  be  taken 
up  with  the  wanderlust  of  life.  Man's  is  the 
eternal  struggle.  He  it  is  who  never  yet  has 
found  the  end  of  the  rainbow. 

The  restlessness  of  life  is  life. 

The  heritage  of  every  soul. 
'Tis   this   that  differentiates 

A  man  from  beast  — 
The  ceaseless  struggle  for  a  goal. 

But  in  another  sense  this  wanderlust  is  both 
wrong  and  foolish.  Just  to  wander  for  the 
sake  of  going,  to  imagine  that  all  we  are  doing 
here  today  is  dross,  and  that  somewhere  to- 
morrow, in  some  new  luxury,  in  some  new  work, 
at  the  end  of  the  rainbow,  is  to  be  found  what 
we  seek,  is  both  futile  and  foolish.  Drop  down 
your  buckets  where  you  are,  good  friend ;  drink 
the  refreshing  waters  of  home  and  love  and 
work;  for  the  day  will  surely  come  to  all  of  us 
when  that  which  once  seemed  commonplace  will 
be  found  amongst  the  most  valued  treasures  of 

life. 

3 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  TRANSIENT  ELEMENTS  IN  THE 
LIFE  OF  JESUS 

There  are  his  language  and  his  dress.  Who 
knows  in  what  language  Jesus  spoke?  Some 
think  it  was  Greek,  others  Aramaic.  But  what 
does  it  matter?  Greek  has  lately  been  abol- 
ished from  the  necessary  credits  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  California.  It  was  almost  the  last 
of  the  great  universities  to  take  this  step. 
And  yet  it  has  been  pointed  out  that  at  this 
very  moment  Greek  culture  was  never  so  com- 
mon. Our  children  learn  the  Greek  myths  as 
nursery  stories,  and  read  large  portions  of  the 
noted  Greek  authors  in  grammar  grades  and 
in  the  high  schools.  The  spirit  of  Greek  is 
here,  and  nobody  cares  about  the  language  as 
such.  It  is  so  with  the  language  Jesus  spoke. 
We  can  all  agree  upon  this  point  —  if  no  fur- 
ther. 

When  we  move  on  to  the  matter  of  dress,  it 

is  not  quite  so  evident  a  thing.     Our  ignorance 

keeps  us  from  making  the  language  of  Jesus  a 

permanent  element  in  his  religion,  but  a  general 

knowledge  of  oriental  dress  has  permitted  us  to 

4 


MODERNIST  STUDIES  6 

stress  this  point  to  some  extent ;  and  there  are 
Christian  bodies  to  whom  the  supposed  sim- 
plicity of  the  dress  of  Jesus  is  important,  if  not 
categorical.  And  there  are  great  bodies  of 
Christians  to  whom  a  certain  kind  of  dress  is 
religious  and  another  secular. 

Moving  up  a  step  farther,  we  come  to  those 
notions  of  the  physical  world  —  what  we  would 
call  the  scientific  ideas  of  his  day  —  presum- 
ably accepted  by  Jesus.  Are  we  bound  to 
accept  as  an  integral  part  of  our  religion  the 
cosmogony  of  the  Jews  —  their  ideas  of  nat- 
ural laws,  the  "  four  corners  of  the  earth," 
etc..'^  Of  course  this  comes  very  close  to  things 
intimately  connected  with  the  early  records  of 
Christianity  —  miracles,  supernatural  voices, 
ecstatic  visions,  as  well  as  the  flatness  of  the 
earth,  and  the  astronomical  observations  of 
the  Jews. 

It  is  apparent,  I  think,  that  Jesus  need  not 
be  loaded  too  heavily  with  this  supposed  phase 
of  religion.  Indeed,  it  seems  necessary  that  if 
he  was  to  speak  to  his  age,  he  must  speak  in  its 
language,  through  its  symbols,  and  through  its 
natural  knowledge,  however  imperfect  that 
knowledge  was.  Some  advance  the  hypothesis 
that  Jesus  knew  everything,  but  did  not  care  to 
interfere  with  incidental  things,  leaving  their 
development  to  natural  processes.  This,  how- 
ever, seems  a  little  mechanical.     There  is  noth- 


6  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

ing  in  the  words  of  Jesus  to  show  that  he  knew 
any  better,  nor  was  it  necessary.  Spiritual 
truth  does  not  depend  upon  any  set  of  develop- 
ing human  ideas ;  it  does  depend  for  its  propa- 
gation in  each  age  upon  the  knowledge  of  that 
age.  And  while  Jesus  spoke  in  that  age  ac- 
cording to  the  cosmogony  of  the  Jews,  with  its 
imperfect  perceptions,  if  he  were  here  today,  he 
would  speak  according  to  evolution  and  intui- 
tion. 

Almost  any  one  of  the  miraculous  stories 
would  illustrate  our  point.  There  is  the  out- 
standing one  of  Jesus  eating  fish  with  his  disci- 
ples after  the  resurrection.  The  absolute 
physical  demonstration  seemed  necessary  to  the 
Jews,  and,  being  weak  in  psychology,  they 
somehow  came  into  the  conception  that  it  was 
so.  It  is  not  often  we  ministers  preach  on  this 
incident,  I  think,  nor  does  it  form  any  part  of 
our  usual  consciousness.  The  feeding  of  the 
five  thousand  is  usually  interpreted  spiritually/, 
with  a  gloss  for  the  miracle  itself.  And  it  is 
with  a  great  deal  of  relief  that  most  of  us  be- 
lieve the  Jewish  cosmogony  to  be  transient  in 
the  life  of  Jesus. 

Then  there  were  in  Jesus  ideas  peculiar  to 
Jewish  thought.  Here  we  run  into  difficult 
matters  —  the  very  heart  of  things  —  where  it 
is  imperative  that  we  discern  carefully.  "  My 
words,  they  are  spirit  and  they  are  life,"  said 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  7 

Jesus  in  many  different  ways.  And  we  all  be- 
lieve that,  only  we  are  anxious  to  know  what 
are  his  own  words  first,  and  then  what  he 
meant  by  words  —  the  shell  and  symbol  of  his 
thought,  or  his  ideas,  essential  and  imperative. 

A  good  deal  of  modern  criticism  has  been  en- 
gaged in  showing  that  the  records  have  been 
edited  (which  is  probably  true)  and  that  cer- 
tain ideas  attributed  to  Jesus  were  not  really 
held  by  him.  That  is  a  world  of  study  in  it- 
self. A  great  part  of  this,  it  seems  to  me,  has 
been  pursued  upon  an  a  priori  basis  —  to  do 
away  with  some  of  these  very  Jewish  ideas. 
We  are  always  fearful  of  such  methods  as  go- 
ing too  far  and  being  too  arbitrary. 

There  seems  to  be  no  reasonable  doubt  that 
Jesus  used  these  Jewish  ideas,  as  he  used  the 
Jewish  cosmogony,  as  indigenous  and  neces- 
sary in  speaking  an  understandable  message. 
That,  however,  is  quite  another  thing  from 
binding  them  upon  all  succeeding  ages. 

The  apocalyptic  passages  have  been  espe- 
cially trying.  Whenever  a  great  war  has 
come,  literalistic  Christians  have  seen  in  it  the 
presaged  end  of  the  world.  There  are  men  in 
nearly  every  city  of  the  world  who  have  been 
devoting  weeks  to  this  very  proposition,  get- 
ting people  ready  quickly  for  the  approaching 
end  of  the  world !  Even  Cardinal  Gibbons  uses 
this  historic  passage  to  edify  his  flock!     And 


8  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

he  has  good  precedents:  St.  Paul  thought  the 
same  thing,  and  in  the  canonical  scriptures 
from  him  we  are  told  that  the  end  of  the  world 
would  come  while  some  then  living  were  still 
upon  the  earth.  St.  Paul's  rabbinical  training 
prepared  his  mind  for  apocalyptic  receptivity, 
but  for  the  rest  of  us  that  ground  of  excuse 
is  not  tenable. 

The  idea  of  judgment  with  the  Jew  was  in- 
eradicably  wrapped  up  with  the  apocalyptic 
idea.  Any  message  that  would  come  to  him 
with  force  must  come  in  that  direction.  Judg- 
ment is  testified  to  in  many  ways  in  different 
times.  The  fact  itself  is  not  less  stressed  to- 
day, but  comes  along  more  reasonable  and  evo- 
lutionary lines.  The  solution  lies  in  that  direc- 
tion, and  we  may  regard  Jesus  with  no  less 
reverence  because  he  did  what  was  the  only  sen- 
sible thing  to  do  —  used  the  prevailing  apoca 
lyptic  notions  for  his  own  purposes. 

A  little  lower  in  the  scale  come  the  less  de- 
veloped Jewish  ideas,  such  as  belief  in  devils. 
The  Gadarene  pigs  are  a  good  example  of  this. 
The  psychological  devils  which  came  out  of  this 
man  had,  according  to  popular  notions,  to  go 
somewhere  else!  And  what  more  happy  than 
this  wild  herd  of  pigs  running  pellmell  into  the 
water ! 

The  same  thing  proves  true  even  of  messian- 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  9 

ism,  though  we  have  not  time  to  go  into  that. 
In  each  case  we  are  helped  immensely  by  the 
fact  that,  while  using  these  popular  theologies, 
Jesus  himself  modified  them  with  an  exceedingly 
free  hand,  hewing  them  to  spiritual  ends. 

Nor  are  his  uses  of  canonical  Scriptures  less 
traditional  on  the  one  hand  and  less  drastic  on 
the  other.  His  application  of  prophecy  to 
himself  is  the  most  eclectic  thing  imaginable. 
It  was  so  transformed  that  its  originators,  the 
Jews,  did  not  recognize  it,  or  recognize  it  as 
anything  more  than  duplicity. 

I  want  to  mention  just  one  other  transient 
phase  of  the  life  of  Jesus  —  his  partisan  ap- 
peal. His  whole  message  in  its  original  form 
is  to  the  Jews.  "  Give  not  that  which  is  holy 
unto  the  dogs."  Or  again,  "  Go  ye  not  into 
the  way  of  the  Gentiles,  and  into  any  city  of 
the  Samaritans  enter  ye  not.  But  go  rather 
to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel."  "  Go 
ye  into  all  the  world  "  is  bounded  thus,  "  Je- 
rusalem, Judea,  and  the  uttermost  parts  of  the 
world"  (a  provincial  view  at  most).  This 
partisan  spirit  holds  over  in  St.  Peter,  and  is 
broken  only  by  the  essential  spirit  of  Chris- 
tianity in  St.  Paul,  against  the  traditional  con- 
ceptions of  both  St.  Peter  and  St.  James  in  the 
First  Council  at  Jerusalem. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Jesus  adapted 


10  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

his  message,  as  his  life,  to  the  Jews,  leaving 
the  leaven  itself  to  break  forth  into  the  univer- 
salism  of  a  world-religion. 

There  are  other  transient  elements  in  the  life 
of  Jesus,  of  course,  but  these  represent  the 
leading  principle. 


SINS  OF  OMISSION 

It  is  comparatively  easy  to  see  the  effect  of 
things  we  do ;  it  is  far  more  difficult  to  discern 
the  influence  of  the  things  we  fail  to  do.  Yet 
the  latter  perhaps  have  more  to  do  with  the 
making  or  unmaking  of  our  lives  than  the  for- 
mer. It  is  quite  natural  to  worry  over,  and 
repent  of,  actual  sins  committed;  it  is  much 
harder  to  make  up  for  the  things  we  have  sim- 
ply left  undone.  Yet  the  latter  are  often  more 
accursed  sources  of  pain  than  the  former.  It 
is  natural  to  say,  "  I  hope  I  shall  do  no  great 
sin  tomorrow  " ;  it  is  far  worthier  to  say,  "  I 
hope  I  shall  leave  no  worthy  thing  undone  to- 
morrow." 

"  Count  that  day  lost,  whose  low  descending  sun 
Sees  from  thy  hand  no  worthy  action  done." 


11 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  PERMANENT  ELEMENTS  IN  THE 
LIFE  OF  JESUS 

We  turn  now  to  the  permanent  elements. 
They  are  evident,  strategic,  and  inspiring, 
scarcely  needing  any  great  amount  of  elucida- 
tion. He  whose  life  has  caught  up  to  himself 
the  great  heart  of  the  world  has  an  intrinsic 
appeal  like  the  morning  light,  which  needs  only 
to  be  seen  to  be  appreciated. 

First  of  all  is  his  plan  of  placing  the  intui- 
tive principle  above  the  rationalistic.  He  is 
almost  Bergsonian  in  this.  That  is  his  posi- 
tion about  God.  There  is  no  single  argument 
in  all  his  life  to  prove  that  there  is  a  God.  It 
was  to  him  an  intuition  and  a  manifestation. 
All  we  needed  to  do  was  to  "  lift  up  our  eyes 
unto  the  hills.''  "  He  that  hath  ears  to  hear, 
let  him  hear,"  and  similar  expressions  were 
ever  upon  his  lips  as  a  final  thrust.  He  would 
not  even  use  his  miracles  to  prove  the  existence 
of  God,  answering  a  request  for  proof  by  say- 
ing that  an  "  evil  and  adulterous  generation 
seeketh  after  a  sign."  In  other  words,  if  the 
sign   was   not   already  here  in   the  instinctive, 

intuitive  processes  of  life,  no  miracle  could  ever 

12 


MODERNIST  STUDIES  13 

impress  the  fact.  This  is  intuition  versus 
rationalism. 

That  was  his  position,  also,  about  himself. 
When  pushed  for  the  source  of  his  claims,  he 
always  fell  back  upon  intrinsic  things  in  him- 
self and  the  ability  of  others  to  see  and  under- 
stand. At  the  cleansing  of  the  Temple,  when 
the  priests  asked  by  what  authority  he  did 
these  things,  he  answered  by  testing  their 
power  to  sense  divine  things :  "  The  baptism 
of  John,  was  it  of  men  or  of  God?  "  If  they 
said  of  men,  then  the  people  would  be  against 
them,  for  all  men  knew  (instinctively)  that 
John  was  a  prophet  of  God.  If  they  said  of 
God,  then  Jesus  would  say,  "  Why  did  ye  not 
believe  him?  "  And  they  answered  Jesus  and 
said,  "  We  cannot  tell."  And  he  answered  and 
said  unto  them,  "  Neither  tell  I  you  by  what 
authority  I  do  these  things."  Here  we  find  the 
intuitive  process,  based  upon  moral  insight,  as 
over  against  legalized  rationalism. 

Upon  another  occasion  they  ask  him, 
"  Where  is  thy  Father?  "  and  Jesus  replies  in 
the  same  spirit,  "  If  ye  had  known  me,  ye 
would  have  known  my  Father  also."  Or 
again,  "  My  sheep  hear  my  voice,  and  I  know 
them,  and  they  will  follow  me  " ;  "  If  any  man 
will  (or  will  to  do)  do  his  will,  he  shall  know 
of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God,  or 
whether  I  speak  of  myself." 


14  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

By  placing  the  intuitive  above  the  rational, 
Jesus  does  not  thereby  ignore  the  rational. 
Again  and  again  he  disconcerts  the  leaders 
with  his  apt  replies,  his  careful  knowledge  of 
detail,  and  his  overwhelming  processes  of  mind. 
"  Never  man  spake  like  this  man,"  or  "  Whence 
hath  this  man  knowledge,  never  having  learned 
his  letters?"  were  the  astonished  rejoinders  of 
worsted  antagonists.  What  he  does  do  is  to 
plant  his  feet  firmly  upon  the  eternal  verities, 
which  may  be  discerned  only  spiritually,  and 
from  this  vantage  ground,  supported  by  reason 
and  love,  walk  the  earth,  the  victor  over  death 
and  the  grave,  to  whose  soul  the  transient  was 
lost  in  the  permanent,  and  even  vicissitudes 
were  only  incidental  and  could  be  made  to  con- 
tribute to  glory  and  victory. 

Closely  linked  with  these  fundamental  tenets 
was  his  doctrine  of  the  fatherhood  and  conse- 
quent personality  of  God.  With  Jesus  this 
was  pivotal.  Personality  was  to  him,  not 
the  maximum,  but  the  minimum.  Breaking 
through  his  words  many  times  are  concepts  of 
God  in  terms  of  cosmos,  but  always  gathering 
into  itself  the  valued  attributes  of  self-con- 
sciousness and  self-determination,  the  hopes 
and  loves  and  realities  of  many  years.  The 
thin  ice  of  immanence  and  pantheism  are  every- 
where skirted  with  a  dexterity  which  is  the  soul 
of  truth  and  simplicity. 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  15 

It  is  never  the  Great-soul  or  Over-soul.  It 
is  always  God  is  love,  but  never  Love  is  God. 
God  is  a  spirit,  the  last  word  about  God,  yet 
a  spirit  endowed  with  love  —  active,  knowing, 
personal.  He  and  the  Father  are  one ;  yet  he 
is  still  the  Son,  and  God  the  Father  —  both 
personal.  The  Holy  Ghost  is  raised  out  of 
the  pantheism  of  olden  times,  and  is  sent,  a 
personal  representative  of  the  Son  and  the 
Father,  into  the  hearts  of  men.  With  Jesus, 
the  fatherhood  is  fatherhood,  lost  in  neither 
immanence,  pantheism,  nor  transcendentalism ; 
rather  comprehending  them  all  in  its  own  satis- 
fying personal  relationships.  So  much  for 
this  well-known  phase  of  the  life  of  Jesus. 

Standing  on  the  same  fundamental  ground 
is  the  doctrine  and  fact  of  atoning  love.  In 
the  older  prophets,  from  Amos  on  down,  there 
was  plenty  of  justice.  Righteousness  was  de- 
manded of  the  people.  Jesus  demanded  justice 
for  himself  only  on  the  basis  of  affection  and 
intrinsic  things.  He  drew  others  to  secure 
justice  for  themselves  according  to  the  same 
great  principle,  until  at  last  the  great  appeal 
was,  "  The  love  of  Christ  constraineth  us." 
The  greatest  good  was  to  be  secured  by  deny- 
ing one's  self  and  taking  up  his  cross.  Not  a 
denial  of  large  expression  of  life  and  personal- 
ity, but  a  holding  in  abeyance  of  one's  rights 
in  order  to   secure  them  through  service  and 


16  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

lave.  Self-immolation,  unknown  in  inanimate 
life,  repugnant  when  exercised  without  pur- 
poses of  a  lofty  nature,  and  seldom  appearing 
in  early  reflective  humanity,  rises  to  its  height 
in  Jesus.  In  a  moment  of  fanaticism  the  sol- 
dier or  martyr  gives  his  life,  perchance  for  an 
imaginary  good.  Erasmus  was  perhaps  wise 
when  he  said,  "  I  have  no  vocation  for  martyr- 
dom." Martyrdom  has  its  glories,  but  its 
pages  are  ofttimes  pitiful.  It  is  almost  incon- 
ceivable how  men  could  have  died  for  some  of 
the  things  for  which  they  gave  their  lives. 

The  death  of  Jesus  was  more  than  martyr- 
dom. It  was  an  atonement,  an  at-one-ment. 
Clear  and  definite  were  the  purposes  which  ac- 
tuated his  whole  life.  It  was  not  difficult  for 
him  to  see  the  cross  looming  up  before  him. 
His  ideals  were  as  inexorable  as  life,  and  God 
must  give  his  expression  of  vicarious  love. 
The  world  must  be  anchored.  It  must  be  over- 
whelmed by  the  great  goodness  and  love  of  God, 
as  well  as  by  his  righteousness  and  justice. 
Self-immolation,  so  repulsive  in  most  instances, 
becomes  in  Jesus  the  atonement  —  moral,  just, 
personal. 

It  is  said  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  great  trouble 
with  the  atonement  until  he  stood  on  the  battle- 
field of  Gettysburg.  The  men  there  had  given 
themselves  for  others  with  a  moral  purview. 
Their  sacrifice  does  give  a  glimpse  of  the  vi- 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  17 

carious  sufferings  of  Jesus,  but  only  a  glimpse. 
Most  of  these  men  were  mere  youths,  who  had 
gone  to  war  for  many  reasons,  with  little 
thought  of  sure  death.  A  portion  of  them 
were  drafted.  Jesus  went  forth  to  die  —  clear- 
sighted, definitely  purposeful,  alone,  meeting  the 
whole  matter  with  full  consciousness  and  de- 
termination. He  gave  himself  a  ransom  for 
many.  Modern  life  and  modern  scholarship 
understand  with  fuller  import  the  meaning  of 
the  atonement,  with  love  first  and  justice  after- 
ward. It  is  a  sure  and  abiding  element  in  the 
life  of  Jesus,  as  it  must  always  be  in  the  life 
of  the  world. 

Definitely  related  to  this  is  the  message  of 
the  brotherhood  of  man.  The  worth  of  human 
life  is  exalted,  and  individualism  pushed  for- 
ward by  relationships  based  on  personality, 
affection,  hope,  justice,  righteousness :  "  If 
God  so  clothe  the  grass,  which  today  is  in  the 
field  and  tomorrow  is  cast  into  the  oven,  will 
he  not  much  more  clothe  you,  O  ye  of  little 
faith !  "  "  Greater  love  hath  no  man  than 
this,  that  he  will  lay  down  his  life  for  another." 

Like  every  other  great  consumer  of  energy, 
brotherhood  needs  a  dynamo.  In  this  great 
day  of  social  effort,  of  institutionalism,  the 
natural  store  of  human  kindness  is  quickly  ex- 
hausted. The  need  is  felt  for  a  great  supply 
for  new  effort  glimpsed  ahead.     Human  kind- 


18  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

ness  has  its  limitations,  and  we  need  what  is  to 
be  found  in  the  exhaustless  life  of  Jesus.  "  If 
any  man  say  that  he  love  God  and  hate  his 
brother,  he  is  a  liar,"  is  the  incontrovertible 
dictum  of  Jesus. 

Mention  must  also  be  made  of  the  immortal- 
ity of  the  soul.  With  Jesus  it  is  based  upon 
the  very  necessities  of  life  —  the  life  of  the 
Father  and  the  life  of  the  individual.  Like  the 
idea  of  God,  it,  too,  is  intuitive  and  instinctive, 
needing  no  argument  or  logical  demonstration. 
It  is  as  natural  as  breathing  air,  or  approp- 
riating sunlight.  "  This  is  eternal  life,  to 
know  thee,  the  only  true  God."  It  is  shrouded 
in  no  mystery,  nor  even  in  the  half-knowledge 
of  St.  Paul  ("  Now  we  know  in  part.")  It  is 
a  definite,  self-conscious,  forward-moving  en- 
tity :  "  In  my  Father's  house  are  many  man- 
sions " —  a  Father  indeed,  and  a  son  indeed. 
*'  We  are  the  sons  of  God,  and  it  does  not  yet 
appear  what  we  shall  be,"  says  St.  John. 
These  are  the  things  that  make  immortality 
worth  while  —  a  robust,  confident,  personal 
immortality. 

And  growing  out  of  these  comes  the  message 
of  responsibility  and  judgment.  Jesus  says 
that  he  does  not  come  to  judge;  and  he  does 
not,  primarily.  But  close  knit  with  the  whole 
structure  of  his  redemption  is  the  awfulness  of 
sin,   the  terrible   consequence   of   spurning  the 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  19 

love  of  God,  redeeming  in  its  very  essence. 
Individualism,  personality,  entity  —  all  imply 
responsibility.  Fatalism  vanishes  from  the 
Christian  consciousness  as  night  before  the 
sun.  The  Christian  is  neither  stoic  nor  epi- 
curean, but  a  responsive,  participating,  respon- 
sible, rational  being,  rooted  in  the  life  of  the 
universe  and  God. 

Last  of  all,  as  well  as  greatest  of  all,  is  the 
personality  of  Jesus  himself.  Back  of  all  his 
humanity,  and  shining  through  all  his  tran- 
sient modes  of  expression,  is  his  own 
unique,  enchanting,  overwhelming  individual- 
ity. Renan  was  right  when  he  said,  "  If  the 
life  and  death  of  Socrates  was  that  of  a  phil- 
osopher, the  life  and  death  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  was  that  of  a  God."  His  own  assur- 
ance, linked  with  the  rest  of  his  life,  is  the 
world's  greatest  source  of  hope.  His  witness 
of  himself  is  true.  In  him  humanity  and  divin- 
ity meet  and  we  reverently  say,  "  Ecce  Homo! 
Ecce  Deu^I  " 


THE  VOLUNTARY  BASIS  OF  RELIGION 

The  only  things  that  count  for  much  are 
the  things  we  love.  The  only  thing  that  can 
sanctify  marriage  is  love  —  an  abiding  love. 
The  only  thing  that  can  make  a  man  success- 
ful in  his  profession  is  to  be  consumed  by  an 
affectionate  interest  in  it.  Business  men  are 
successful  only  when  they  love  their  business  as 
they  love  their  meals.  And  what  is  true  about 
everything  else  in  the  world  is  true  about  re- 
ligion. It  has  its  reality  in  the  voluntary 
basis  of  life,  where  affection  simply  bubbles 
over,  and  faith,  like  laughter,  fills  the  air. 
Early  Christianity  was  an  almost  voluptuous 
overflowing  of  pure  and  unadulterated  human 
affection.  It  is  something  in  which  there  can 
be  no  thought  of  barter,  of  penalty,  of  cus- 
tom;  it  is  in  every  sense  its  own  justification, 
and  comes  very  near  what  M.  Aurelius  called 
"  pure  cussedness  "  in  the  early  martyrs  who 
refused  to  recant,  going  joyously  to  death. 


20 


CHAPTER    IV 
JESUS  AND  AUTHORITY 

"  God,  who  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners 
spake  in  times  past  unto  the  fathers  by  the  prophets, 
hath  in  these  latter  days  spoken  unto  us  by  his  son." 

In  one  sense  every  good  doctrine  is  neces- 
sary in  the  religion  of  Jesus ;  in  another  sense 
his  religion  has  few  vital  and  necessary  doc- 
trines. In  one  way  it  challenges  man's  largest 
and  endless  study;  in  another  way  the  simplest 
mind  may  learn  its  lessons.  The  life  of  Jesus, 
predominantly  realistic,  perhaps  just  because 
of  that,  reaches  over  in  a  multitude  of  impli- 
cations into  the  larger  or  divine  life.  I,  for 
one,  like  to  think  of  Jesus  in  this  paradoxical 
sense  —  on  the  one  hand  having  the  simplest 
message  for  children  and  peasant  minds  to  un- 
derstand, and  on  the  other  reaching  far  out 
into  life's  greatest  mysteries,  challenging  the 
loftiest  minds  and  noblest  hearts.  It  is  per- 
haps because  our  own  personalities  are  con- 
structed that  way ;  we  have  a  sense  of  the 
natural  and  also  a  sense  of  the  supernatural. 
We   have    a   sense    of   transient   values    and   a 

sense  of  permanent  values. 

21 


%%  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

The  supernatural  implications  in  the  life  of 
Jesus,  which  constrain  us  to  venerate  him,  are 
perhaps  best  made  known  through  the  teach- 
ings of  the  incarnation.  Having  accepted  the 
moral  grandeur  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  see  how  one  could  steer  clear  of  some 
such  summary  of  his  life,  answering,  as  it 
does,  at  the  same  time  an  instinctive  need  of 
the  human  heart. 

Once,  indeed,  Jesus  seemed  to  disparage  his 
own  place :  "  Call  not  me  good,  for  there  is 
none  good  save  God."  But  in  all  other  places 
we  run  into  words  of  surprising  authority. 
One  of  the  first  observations  was  that  he  spoke 
not  as  the  Scribes,  but  as  one  having  author- 
ity. The  ego  in  Jesus  either  militates  against 
his  moral  grandeur,  or  it  becomes  at  once  an 
implication  of  unique  authority,  and  fascinat- 
ing hope  —  that  after  all  God  has  been  in  our 
midst. 

There  is  an  interesting  phase  of  this  prob- 
lem in  the  possibility  of  such  a  revelation.  Of 
course  the  man  who  upon  a  priori  grounds  does 
not  believe  it  possible  for  God  to  reveal  him- 
self in  this  distinct  and  unique  way,  is  not  pre- 
pared to  believe  it  —  even  though  it  be  true. 
However,  he  who  knows  what  God  can  and 
cannot  do  must  be  very  wise. 

Here  we  are  in  the  midst  of  life's  problems. 
We  are  full  of  questions    and    doubts    and  — 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  23 

premonitions.  There  are  many  things  we 
would  like  to  know ;  there  are  some  things  we 
feel  we  must  know  or  die.  And  we  ask  our- 
selves :  "  Is  it  possible  for  God  to  reveal  him- 
self to  us  in  and  through  personality?  He 
who  does  not  believe  it  must  almost  surely  do 
two  things :  First,  he  must  dogmatize  a  great 
deal  about  the  power  of  God ;  in  a  way  he 
must  arrogate  to  himself  the  ability  to  mark 
the  limits  of  the  Infinite  according  to  his  own 
limited  or  arbitrary  vision.  Second,  he  must 
accept  life  as  a  fragment,  with  its  morning,  its 
afternoon,  its  night.  He  must  see  conscious- 
ness dawn,  grow  into  intelligence  and  —  per- 
ish. He  must  place  his  friends  and  loved  ones 
in  the  grave,  and  know  them  ever  afterward 
only  in  memory,  perhaps  in  the  flowers,  the 
grass,  and  the  air.  Is  it  possible  that  God 
should  reveal  more  than  this? 

Does  God  reveal  himself  in  the  grass  and  the 
flowers?  Yes.  But  no  revelation  in  the  grass 
and  the  flowers  can  ever  satisfy  the  human 
consciousness  and  intelligence.  Does  God  re- 
veal himself  in  the  stars?  We  think  of  the  in- 
scription on  the  tomb  of  Mrs.  John  A. 
Brashear,  written  by  her  astronomer  hus- 
band, "  We  have  loved  the  stars  too  much  to 
be  afraid  of  the  night,  "  and  we  reverently 
answer,  "  Yes.  "  But  even  that  far-away  reve- 
lation  could   hardly   be  expected   to   satisfy  a 


24  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

human  soul  unless  complemented  by  other  ele- 
ments. Does  God  reveal  himself  in  brute  life? 
Yes.  But  such  can  never  complement  man's 
spiritual  needs,  the  great  outreachings  and  in- 
sistent aspirations.  The  Chrisitian  religion, 
therefore,  following  the  manifest  needs  of 
human  life,  accepts  the  assumption  of  Jesus 
and  insists  that  what  is  everywhere  else  true 
must  also  be  true  in  the  highest  realm  of  God's 
expressed  life  —  that  of  personality. 

In  what,  then,  shall  the  revelation  consist  .f^ 
How  shall  God  reveal  himself  that  we  may 
most  easily  comprehend  his  message.''  We 
answer  —  through  a  person ;  through  one  who 
was  tempted  in  all  points  like  as  we  are,  who 
was  anhungered,  who  wept,  who  laughed,  who 
was  strong  while  yet  tempted.  If  God  should 
ask  me  today  how  best  he  could  make  himself 
known  to  me,  I  would  say  —  through  a  per- 
son who,  coming  into  my  actual  environment, 
would  show  me  the  way  to  live.  The  possibility 
thus  transforms  itself  into  a  probability. 

Nor  am  I  unaware  of  the  other  side  of  the 
problem.  Men  carried  away  with  the  really  fine 
idea  of  Divine  Immanence  —  that  God  is  in 
everything  —  men  who  sense  a  cosmic  super- 
naturalism,  cannot  understand  how  a  true 
revelation  should  come  through  a  man  limited 
and  tempted  as  we  are.  Of  course  God  is  in 
everything.       His    purposes    are    eternal    and 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  25 

through  all.  There  is  a  reason  even  for  the  ex- 
istence of  evil,  without  the  postulate  of  a  per- 
sonal devil.  But  mark  this :  man's  need  of  a 
revelation  has  nothing  to  do  with  Divine  Im- 
manence. His  revelation  must  come  to  him 
through  his  own  nature,  and  answer  to  his 
own  need  here  and  now.  So  we  must  not  ex- 
pect Jesus  to  be  a  tree,  a  cloud,  a  planet,  a 
sparrow,  just  to  show  us  that  he  is  immanent  in 
everything.  We  know  God  is  in  everything 
without  a  revelation.  Power  is  one  of  the  first 
aspects  we  glimpse  in  the  life  of  God.  So  the 
revelation  of  God  in  Jesus  has  no  direct  bear- 
ing on  many  things  —  science,  philosophy,  in- 
vention, farming.  True,  he  has  inspired  and 
led  these  studies  in  an  incidental  way.  But 
those  things  we  are  to  learn  for  ourselves. 
Jesus  concerned  himself  with  the  deeper  needs 
and  question  of  man's  eternal  progress  and 
life.  Nor  did  Jesus  come  to  tell  us  every- 
thing. He  would  not  tell  his  disciples  all  he 
knew.  He  gave  the  vital  tendencies,  the  eter- 
nal principles,  the  moral  energies,  which  are 
so  simple.  With  Newman,  Jesus  would  have 
every  follower  of  his  say: 

"  I  do  not  ask  to  see  the  distant  scene ; 
One  step  enough  for  me." 

The    final     test,     however,   is    rational    and 
moral.     As   challenging   as    the   possibility   is. 


26  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

and  as  instinctive  as  the  need  seems  to  be 
—  the  natural  complement  of  all  that  we 
are  —  a  choice  must  be  made,  and  the  choice 
is  left  to  us.  To  whom  shall  we  go?  Where 
shall  we  find  this  man,  God's  man  —  yea,  in  a 
vital  sense  Deity  himself?  That  is  a  moment- 
ous choice.  You  perhaps  remember  the 
story  of  the  French  atheist  who,  knowing  the 
vital  place  of  this  question,  asked  the  Car- 
dinal :  "  If  you  ever  found  another  man  as 
good  as  Jesus,  what  would  you  do?  "  And  the 
Cardinal  replied,  "  I  would  worsliip  him.  " 
The  choice  takes  in  moral  grandeur  as  a  final 
test.  There  was  the  discerning  doubter  who 
was  asked :  "  Provided  there  is  a  God,  and  an- 
other life,  if  a  man  should  live  according  to  the 
spirit  and  precepts  of  Jesus,  do  you  think  he 
would  inherit  eternal  life?"  and  who  promptly 
answered  in  the  affirmative.  It  is  doubtful  if 
a  more  fundamental  question  was  ever  asked, 
or  a  more  satisfactory  answer  given.  In  this 
direction  lies  the  quest  and  the  decision. 

The  incarnation  is  not,  as  some  suppose,  an 
abstract  dogma,  or  theory  of  life ;  nor  does  it 
assume  to  solve  all  difficulties.  The  incarna- 
tion has  almost  infinite  ramifications,  but  pri- 
marily it  is  God  revealing  himself  through  a 
babe,  a  young  boy,  and  a  man.  It  is  God  in 
humanity  speaking  to  humanity.     And  that  is 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  27 

not  so  strange  a  thing  after  all.  There  are 
some  who  are  afraid  of  what  they  call  an  "  an- 
thropomorphic "  God  —  that  is,  a  God  who  is 
no  more  than  a  man.  That  is  the  scare  that 
dogmatists  on  the  one  hand,  and  free  thinkers 
on  the  other,  throw  into  the  arena  of  dis- 
cussion. The  dogmatist  says  you  must  have  a 
Deity  above  and  separated  (holy)  from  hu- 
manity ;  and  so  he  constructs  a  God  away  off 
yonder  who  only  reveals  himself  through  some 
special  heirarchy  or  body  of  doctrines.  The 
free-thinker  frankly  says  that  he  will  never 
worship  a  man,  that  if  he  ever  worships  any- 
thing it  will  be  God,  pure  and  simple.  And, 
very  naturally,  since  there  can  be  no  such  God, 
nor  would  he  be  understandable  if  he  did  exist, 
the  free-thinker  finds  himself  where  perhaps 
philosophically  he  wants  to  be,  i.  e.  without 
any  practical  demands   from  religion. 

In  the  light  of  such  alternatives,  historic 
Christianity  is  frankly  anthropomorphic.  It 
says  that  man  is  God's  best  gift  to  man,  and 
that  in  all  ages,  through  prophets  and  priests 
and  now"  in  a  special  gift  of  himself,  he  still 
through  man  reveals  man  to  himself.  The 
creed  does  not  hesitate  to  say,  "  He  was  bom 
of  the  Virgin  Mary,"  "  He  was  made  man," 
*'  He  was  crucified  under  Pontius  Pilate,  " 
"  He  was   dead   and   buried.  "     It   says   much 


28  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

more  than  this,  of  course,  and  reaches  over  in 
to  the  very  essence  of  the  divine  life,  but  the 
revelation  is  human  after  all. 

And  from  what  I  am  able  to  learn  it  is  a 
position  that  can  be  upheld  along  the  most  ap- 
proved lines  of  reasoning.  For  instance, 
there  is  a  narrow  sphere  which  sets  man  off 
from  everything  else  in  the  world  —  and  that 
is  the  sphere  of  his  own  personality :  his  ability 
to  know  himself  and  others,  with  affection, 
faith,  loyalty,  and  other  well  known  functions. 
It  is  what  your  little  child  has,  and  your  sew- 
ing machine  and  automobile  do  not  have.  It 
is  that  which  in  her  you  love  here,  and  wish  to 
see  persist  after  the  frail  body  goes  back  to 
ashes.  Everything  else  clusters  around  that 
functioning.  It  is  the  divine  element  in  hu- 
manity, and  so  far  as  we  know  exists  alone  in 
mankind. 

Now  the  approach  to  this  personality  is  also 
narrow.  It  is  limited  on  two  sides.  First, 
nature  can  teach  it  little  or  nothing,  because 
nature  is  of  a  lower  order.  If  Robinson  Cru- 
soe had  lived  long  enough  on  the  island,  he 
perchance  would  have  gone  mad.  All  the 
beautiful  nature  about  him  would  have  meant 
little  or  nothing  to  him  without  humanity 
about  him.  And  those  who  talk  a  lot  about 
the  "  inspiration  of  nature "  as  taking  the 
place  of  religious  inspiration  ought  to  have  to 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  29 

live  like  Crusoe,  on  a  beautiful  island  —  alone. 
I  feel  sure  that  when  they  came  back  after  a 
few  months  it  would  be  with  a  rearranged  the- 
ology !  The  inspiration  of  nature  is  aesthetic 
rather  than  religious.  The  lessons  are  all  on 
a  distinctly  lower  plane. 

Then  the  approach  is  limited  on  the  super- 
natural side,  just  as  on  the  natural  side. 
Miracles  as  such  have  very  little  value  for  the 
satisfaction  of  personality.  It  is  often  harder 
to  understand  the  miracle  than  the  lesson  it  is 
supposed  to  teach.  Jesus  himself  places  them 
on  a  distinctly  lower  plane :  "  They  have  Moses 
and  the  prophets,  and  if  they  will  not  believe 
them,  they  will  not  believe  even  though  one 
rose  from  the  dead.  " 

The  avenue  of  approach  to  our  highest  na- 
tures is,  after  all,  through  humanity.  And 
that  is  exactly  what  we  find  in  the  religion  of 
Jesus.  When  God  wished  to  reveal  himself  in 
an  adequate  way  to  his  children  he  humbled 
himself,  was  born  of  a  virgin,  and  became  a 
man,  and  dwelt  among  us,  and  was  tempted  in 
all  points  like  as  we  are.  There  is,  then, 
nothing  strange,  but  something  infinitely  re- 
freshing, in  the  idea  of  the  Incarnation. 


PITFALLS 

As  a  free-will  carries  with  it  attendant  dan- 
gers, so  the  very  possibility  of  living  the  larg- 
est kind  of  a  life,  in  the  religion  of  Jesus,  in 
a  liberal  faith,  has  accompanying  pitfalls. 
Those  dangers  are  that  it  may  mistake  liberty 
for  license;  that  it  may  be  too  tolerant;  that 
it  is  apt  to  be  hesitant  and  afraid.  There  is 
a  liberty  that  leadeth  unto  life,  and  there  is 
a  liberty  that  leadeth  unto  death. 

But  there  are  so  many  things  to  be  believed, 
there  are  so  many  things  for  which  we  may 
stand  positively,  there  are  so  many  restraints 
that  lead  to  dynamic  power,  that  the  man  who 
pities  himself  either  for  lack  of  truth  in  the 
world  or  for  something  to  strive  for,  has  only 
himself  to  blame.  He  who  can  live  in  a  world 
of  light  and  joy  with  only  blackness  in  his 
heart  has  somehow  lost  his  way. 


30 


CHAPTER  V 
JESUS  AS  THE  FULFILLER 

"  I  am  come  not  to  destroy  the  law,  but  to  fulfill  the 
law." —  Jesus. 

Thus  Jesus  put  himself  in  contact  with  the 
conditions  of  his  own  times.  He  brought  no 
cataclysmic  cure-all.  He  was  radical  —  as 
radical  as  love;  he  was  constantly  surprising; 
he  sometimes  seemed  to  his  own  people  blas- 
phemous. Yet  he  must  be  judged  largely  by 
his  own  estimate  of  his  aims,  and  that  estimate 
was  one  of  the  Fulfiller.  He  went  himself,  and 
advised  his  followers  to  attend  the  Synagogue. 
He  sent  some  to  the  priest.  He  was  not  an 
iconoclast.  He  created  no  new  religion,  either 
in  an  institutional  or  doctrinal  sense.  He 
wrote  no  sacred  book,  like  Mohammed  or  Joseph 
Smith  or  Mrs.  Eddy.  He  did  not  even  com- 
mit to  writing  his  own  sayings,  like  Con- 
fucius. He  completed  no  hierarchy.  To 
plant  his  feet  upon  he  took  the  historical  back- 
ground, such  as  it  was ;  it  might  conceivably 
have  been  something  very  different. 

The  interesting  point  for  us  of  this  day  is 

31 


S2  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

that  his  principle  was  one  of  fulfillment.  His 
face  was  always  toward  the  future.  His  work 
was  always  the  work  of  today.  He  then  found 
the  point  of  contact.  And  may  that  not  mark 
the  new  way  for  us.^^  Long  since  any  arbi- 
trary schemes  we  may  have  had  have  failed. 
Any  titles  we  may  have  conferred  on  Jesus  are 
but  temporary,  and  in  time  they  are  apt  to 
give  more  trouble  than  help,  even  that  one 
which  was  added  earliest  of  all  (Jesus  "Christ" 
—  Jewish  Messiah).  Jesus  hesitated  to  take 
this  title.  Different  titles  have  served  in  dif- 
ferent ages,  even  as  it  is.  What  Jesus  has 
meant  to  various  ages  may  give  us  a  glimpse 
of  what  he  may  mean  to  us  and  to  the  future. 
Let  us  see. 

The  highest  thought  of  Judaism  was  Mes- 
sianism.  It  was  a  variable  quantity,  but  al- 
ways embracing  the  hope  that  God  would  in- 
carnate himself  and  dwell  with  men.  With  the 
Jews  it  was  always  more  or  less  anthropomor- 
phic, always  more  or  less  nationalistic.  Jesus 
was  more,  of  course,  than  the  Messiah  of  the 
Jews,  and  he  did  not  pretend  to  identify  him- 
self in  every  particular  with  their  Messianism. 
He  replied  to  them  once  when  they  asked  him: 
"Thou  hast  said."  And  anyone  may  discern 
how  he  magnified  the  Messianism  they  held,  and 
spiritualized  it.  But  his  Jewish  disciples  (for 
all  the  early  disciples  were  Jews)  at  once  iden- 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  33 

tified  him  with  the  highest  message  of  Jewish 
life  and  philosophy.  And  he,  at  last,  per- 
mitted it.  Was  he  justified.'^  Certainly.  He 
fulfilled  it,  spiritualized  it,  galvanized  it  into 
life.  This  is  evident  when  we  remember  that 
since  his  day  Jewish  Messianism  has  never 
meant  anything  except  as  it  has  persisted  in 
him  —  an  exceptional  tribute  and  leadership. 
But  the  permanent  message  of  Messianism  may 
not  mean  much  to  us ;  it  may,  indeed,  be  a 
stumbling  block  unless  understood  in  historic 
perspective.  Jesus  is  the  Messiah  of  the  Jew 
—  and  very  much  more. 

The  noblest  doctrine  of  the  Greeks  was  the 
Logos,  or  eternal  wisdom.  The  effort  of 
Greek  culture  was  to  make  a  man  so  wise  that 
he  would  live  accordingly.  It  was  and  is  a 
really  great  doctrine.  The  finest  moral  in- 
sight in  all  ancient  philosophy  is  to  be  found 
in  the  Greeks  such  as  Socrates,  Plato,  and 
Zeno.  St.  John  at  once  identifies  Jesus  with 
this  Logos :  "  In  the  beginning  was  the  word 
(the  Logos)  and  the  word  was  with  God,  and 
the  word  was   God  —  and   the   word   became 

FLESH      AND      DWELT      AMONG      US."       JeSUS      WaS 

more  than  the  Logos  of  the  Greeks ;  he  was 
its  FULFiLLER  also,  curiching  it  with  his  own 
unique  personality.  St.  Paul  makes  contact 
with  their  god  whom  unknowingly  they  wor- 
shipped,  complementing  it   with   the   Christian 


34  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

message.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  it  never 
meant  anything  to  the  world  as  a  separate 
philosophy  after  Jesus  came  into  contact  with 
it.  It  was  literally  swallowed  up  in  the  beau- 
tiful spirit  of  his  empiricism. 

The  next  great  effort  of  humanity  was  mon- 
asticism.  It  is  unfortunate  that  we  only  know 
the  latter  end  of  monasticism,  when  it  was 
aenemic,  if  not  actually  sluggish  and  vile.  In 
its  first  efforts  it  was  dynamic  with  the  spirit 
of  re-invigoration.  Whatever  of  the  old  civ- 
ilization there  was  had  largely  gone  to  pieces, 
and  the  impact  of  the  new  barbarians  from  the 
north  made  a  pitiful  thing  to  call  civilization. 
It  was  rather  a  job-lot  or  a  pot-pourri. 
There  were  two  great  needs  —  education  and 
the  spread  of  goodness.  The  brutality  of  the 
north,  with  its  great,  unused  energies,  needed 
to  be  soothed  and  made  human  and  merciful. 
The  ignorance  everywhere  needed  to  be  scat- 
tered. Charlemagne  could  not  read  nor  write. 
The  monks  banded  themselves  together,  and 
took  up  the  prodigious  tasks  of  humanity. 
They  preserved  old  manuscripts  and  made 
new  ones.  They  taught  the  children,  such  as 
they  could  gather  about  the  schools.  They 
preached  righteousness  and  tamed  the  fol- 
lowers of  Attila  and  Genseric.  We  may  say 
what  we  will  about  later  monasticism ;  in  its 
early  efforts  it  was  perhaps  the  only  kind  of 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  35 

method  which  could  have  faced  so  overmaster- 
ing a  problem.  And  who,  pray  you,  was  the 
central  figure  in  that  effort?  Where  did  it 
find  its  inspiration?  Around  what  pagan 
philosopher  did  it  gather  its  formulae?  There 
is  only  one  figure  in  monasticism  —  the  suffer- 
ing Saviour  of  mankind.  Jesus  was  to  them 
neither  the  Messiah  nor  the  Logos  primarily, 
but  the  suffering  Saviour,  acquainted  with 
grief  and  merciful.  In  this  period  of  regen- 
eration he  was  the  Big  Brother. 

Justin  Martyr  retains  a  high  estimate  of  his 
Greek  friends  after  his  conversion,  by  persuad- 
ing himself  that  Heraclitus,  Socrates,  and 
many  Stoics  were  virtually  Christians  since 
they  had  been  enlightened  by  the  Logos,  later 
to  be  more  perfectly  revealed  in  the  person  of 
Jesus.  So  Dante  places  Virgil  and  many 
other  pagans  in  Purgatory,  some  of  them  with 
higher  places  than  popes  and  prelates.  St. 
Paul  dares  to  place  Jesus  in  unison  not  only 
with  Messianism,  but  with  the  highest  and  best 
things  and  persons :  "  For  all  things  are  yours, 
whether  .  .  .  the  world,  or  life,  or  death, 
or  things  present  or  things  to  come :  all  are 
yours,  and  ye  are  Christ's,  and  Christ  is  God's." 

And  in  this  these  leaders  of  early  Chris- 
tianity were  entirely  correct :  Jesus  is  more 
than  a  deified  man,  more  than  the  Messiah  of 
the  Jews,  or  the  Logos  of  the  Greeks,  or  the 


36  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

dogmas  of  the  Church;  he  is  the  eternal 
struggle  for  good.  Once  Lanfranc  related  to 
Anselm,  Abbot  of  Bee,  the  story  of  the  death 
of  St.  Alphege,  an  English  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury, who  was  killed  by  the  Danes.  They 
had  offered  to  spare  his  life  if  they  were  paid 
a  ransom.  He  rejected  the  offer  because  he 
knew  he  would  have  to  take  the  money  from 
the  poor  of  his  diocese.  Lanfranc  said  that 
Alphege  ought  not  to  be  called  a  saint  and  a 
martyr,  for  he  had  not  died  for  Christ. 
"  But,  "  replied  Anselm,  "  to  die  for  righteous- 
ness is  to  die  for  Christ.  " 

This  understanding  of  Jesus  opens  up  tre- 
mendously interesting  questions.  Are  we  jus- 
tified in  exercising  the  wonderful  eclecticism 
that  Jesus  himself  lived  by?  For  many  cen- 
turies his  message  has  been  wrapped  up  with 
such  terms  as  Messiah  (Christ),  Lord,  King, 
Saviour,  Logos,  Son  of  God  —  all  of  which 
are,  after  all,  local  and  historical  expressions, 
growing  out  of  the  soil  of  language  and  ex- 
perience. If  Socialism  should  mould  into  the 
language  of  the  world  the  word  "  comrade,  " 
would  it  be  possible  for  us  to  say  "  Jesus,  the 
Comrade,  "  as  we  now  say  Jesus,  the  Christ.'^ 
Why  not.? 

The  word  "  comrade  "  has  implications  never 
dreamed  of  in  Messianism.^^  It  is  universal, 
personal,   compassionate,   loving,    constructive. 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  37 

It  seems,  indeed,  to  be  in  line  with  the  thought 
of  Jesus :  "  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself.  "  "  Go  and  sell  that  thou  hast,  and 
give  to  the  poor.  "  It  fits  in  with  the  message 
as  understood  by  the  early  disciples,  when  they 
brought  all  that  they  had  and  laid  it  at  the 
apostles'  feet.  And  while  Jesus  hesitatingly 
accepted  the  Messianic  role,  and  all  other  doc- 
trines are  clearly  deductions,  he  never  hesi- 
tated to  be  the  "  comrade  " ;  "A  new  com- 
mandment I  give  unto  you,  that  ye  love  one  an- 
other, even  as  I  have  loved  you."  Shall  Jesus 
still  be  wrapped  in  the  swaddling  clothes  of  the 
ages?  We  hear  of  him  now  only  under  terms 
andient,  medieval,  and  feudalistic.  Shall  we 
thus  think  of  him  only,  or  as  the  Fulfiller? 
The  first  seems  to  put  him  in  line  with  the  other 
merely  human  founders  of  historic  religions ; 
the  latter  to  give  him  his  rightful  place  in  the 
Divine  Order  of  Life. 

Thus  fascinating  implications  arise  around 
the  person  of  Jesus.  He  himself  becomes 
more  than  the  deification  of  a  man ;  he  is  the 
synthesis  of  all  God's  works.  He  is  more  than 
Dionysius,  who  theoretically  rises  from  the 
dead;  he  is  the  resurrection  and  the  life.  His 
name  is  no  mere  talisman ;  "  to  die  for  right- 
eousness "  is,  as  St.  Anselm  says,  "  to  die  for 
Christ.  "  He  is  more  than  any  theory  of  wis- 
dom either  Jew  or  Greek ;  he  is  the  Way,  the 


S8  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

Truth,  and  the  Life.  Thus  he  manifests  him- 
self today  in  mind  and  medicine,  in  tree  and 
herb,  in  intellect  and  affection;  in  him  all 
things  become  ours ;  whether  the  world,  or  life, 
or  death,  or  things  to  come,  all  are  ours  and 
we  through  him  are  God's. 

And  for  our  destiny  the  implications  are  no 
less  suggestive.  All  things  become  ours.  We 
theocratize  the  world.  It  becomes  our 
Father's  house.  Nature  is  his  and  wisdom  is 
his;  the  projection  of  personality  is  his;  the 
movements  of  virtue  and  affection  are  his,  as 
they  are  God's.  As  God  is  back  of  all,  so 
Jesus  is  in  unison  with  and  the  inspiration  of 
the  great  advances.  Nor  are  we  a  thing 
apart.  The  world  cannot  be  estimated  with- 
out every  individual  —  apart  from  you  and 
me.  The  secret  shortcoming  which  we  thought 
our  own,  is  not  our  own ;  it  is  against  God, 
against  the  world,  against  the  cosmic  order. 
The  humble  virtue  of  the  peasant  is  an  asset 
of  all  time  and  all  things.  So  the  true  ad- 
vancements of  science  and  agriculture  and 
domesticity,  as  well  as  of  morality  and  belief, 
are  things  through  which  we  may  glorify  God 
and  find  our  place  in  the  Eternal  Order. 

Jesus  is  the  radical  of  all  the  ages.  He  is 
the  iconoclast  of  love.  There  is  nothing  more 
radical  than  love.  It  pursues  its  way  without 
fear,  and  one  could  almost  say  without  favor. 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  39 

It  is  the  new  wine  which  many  times  demands 
new  bottles.  Love  is  like  the  instinct  of  being 
bom  —  pain  and  travail  are  its  incidents ;  life 
is  its  ultimate.  Jesus  is  as  radical  as  love  and 
life. 


GOD  PERSONAL 

Religion  and  life  hinge  upon  a  belief  in  a 
personal  God.  Divine  Immanence,  Pantheism, 
and  Nirvana  are  all  good,  but  they  are  only 
partial  aspects  of  the  life  of  God,  and  the  lesser 
ones  at  that.  The  one  tremendous  and  mo- 
mentous fact  in  the  world  is  personality  —  the 
personality  of  man.  Anything  less  than  this, 
therefore,  in  any  concept  of  God  is  unphiloso- 
phic,  and  eventually  degrading  to  the  human 
spirit.  I  know  people  who  say  that  they  do 
not  worry  over  the  future  life.  But  they 
usually  say  that  in  the  heyday  and  springtime 
of  life,  full  to  overflowing  with  the  exuber- 
ance of  the  very  personality  whose  value  they 
so  belittle  after  a  few  short  years. 

What  would  you  take  for  the  personality  of 

your   little    girl?     Give   her    good   health,    the 

power    of    locomotion,     everlasting    existence, 

everything,  except  her  knowledge  of  you  and 

your    knowledge    of    her?     What    would    you 

take,  and  have  that  be  the  case?     Nothing  in 

all    the   world.     If   you   believe   in   God,   then, 

what  is  the  least  attribute  in  that  picture?     Is 

it  not  personality? 

40 


CHAPTER  VI 

JESUS  AND  THE  RELIGION  OF 
TOMORROW 

"  I  am  the  door:  by  me,  if  any  man  enter  in,  he  shall 
be  saved,  and  shall  go  in  and  out,  and  shall  find  pas- 
ture. ...  I  am  come  that  ye  might  have  life,  and  that 
ye  might  have  it  more  abundantly." — Jesus. 

When     Henry     Van     Dyke     delivered     the 

Beecher    Lectures    on    Preaching    at    Yale    in 

eighteen    hundred    and   ninety-five,   he    entitled 

them    "  The   Gospel    for   an   Age    of   Doubt.  " 

It  is  a  very  difficult  thing,  admitted  by  all,  to 

discern   and  describe  adequately   the  spirit  of 

any   generation.     Dr.   Van  Dyke  was  perhaps 

correct  in  the   use  of  the  term   "  An  Age  of 

Doubt  "  as  describing  a  certain  transient  phase 

of   our   development.     At   any   rate   there   has 

been  a  perceptible  change  since  eighteen  hundred 

and   ninety-five,    and   our   age   might   be   more 

properly    described    as    "  An    Age    of    Belief." 

Not  that  men  have  come  to  accept  dogma  in 

its  medieval  or  even  eighteenth  century  sense. 

But   men    today,   while   keenly   inquisitive,    are 

reverent     and     constructive     thinkers.     Many 

things,   indeed,  which  have  continued   to   exist 

41 


42  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

apparently  only  because  they  were  old,  are  be- 
ing discarded,  but  the  outlook  everywhere  is 
constructive,  intelligent,  and  consonant  with 
the  highest  abilities  of  men  and  the  noblest 
processes  of  the  divine  Life.  It  is  indeed  an 
outlook  that  is  a  Vision. 

Presented  with  a  dilemma  of  Rationalism  or 
Vision  we  must,  of  course,  choose  the  Vision. 
Vision  has  within  itself  all  those  divine  instincts 
that  have  brought  Reason  into  play  in  our 
lives,  and  the  Vision  can  never  be  lost  except 
at  the  price  of  a  weakened  Rationality  itself. 
But  the  present  age  does  not  see  any  dilemma 
at  all.  Reason  must  ever  be  led  by  Vision,  and 
Vision  in  turn  must  be  buttressed  in  the  sure 
things  of  increasing  knowledge. 

The  heart  of  our  present  attitude  is  to  be 
found  in  an  ancient  formula  yvw^e  aeavTov  (know 
thyself)  —  a  vision  which  the  Greek  glimpsed, 
but  never  came  into  himself.  It  was  Pope,  I 
think,  who  said,  "  the  proper  study  of  mankind 
is  man."  When  Jesus  said,  "  Ye  shall  know 
the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free," 
he  was  forced  to  modify  it  and  make  it  prac- 
tical and  personal  by  saying,  "  I  am  the  Way, 
the  Truth,  and  the  Life."  Real  knowledge  is 
personal,  intimate,  inquisitive,  casting  the  beam 
from  its  own  eye  before  it  can  see  clearly  to 
take  the  moat  out  its  brother's  eye.  This  is 
an  age,  I  do  not  think  it  too  much  to  say,  that 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  43 

is  coming  to  know  itself.  This  is  an  age,  we 
cannot  say,  that  has  found,  but  is  finding  itself. 

Jesus  is  bound  to  mean  more  to  this  age  in 
which  we  are  living  than  in  any  other  preceding 
age.  I  hope  I  may  say  that  without  any  sense 
of  self-complacency.  The  nexus  is  this  new 
knowledge  and  attitude  that  we  have  gathered 
up  in  ourselves.  Jesus  is  reported  to  have 
come  into  the  world  in  the  "  fullness  of  time." 
It  is  a  pragmatic  fact  that  he  does  not  now 
come  into  the  world  until  in  some  sort  of 
fashion  we  are  prepared  to  receive  him.  The 
corollary  is  also  true  —  that  every  age  sees 
Jesus  with  its  own  "  specs."  Truth  is  an  ever- 
existant  and  complete  entity,  but  our  appre- 
hension of  truth  is  a  variant,  depending  on  our 
culture,  using  culture  in  its  widest  sense.  So 
Jesus  stands,  the  Ideal,  the  Vision,  the  Dream 
of  all  who  love  and  hope,  but  our  apprehension 
of  him  is  measured  by  the  "  thing  we  are." 

Lest  I  be  misunderstood,  let  me  say  that  I 
do  not  think  our  age  has  reached  millennial  per- 
fection. I  am  not  one  of  those  who  join  in 
deifying  the  Crowd.  I  want  to  register  what 
we  are,  and  look  at  Jesus  as  we  may  be  privi- 
leged to  see  him  in  that  new  light.  Neverthe- 
less I  do  stand  sponsor  for  this  age  as  the  best 
age,  this  year  as  the  best  year,  and  this  hour 
as  the  best  hour  of  all  the  ages  and  years  and 
hours  that  have  passed. 


44  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

In  view  of  this  I  want  to  say  that  the  religion 
which  is  ours  today,  and  which  is  more  and 
more  to  be  the  rehgion  of  the  coming  years,  is 
a  religion  which  may  be  described  as  an  up- 
standing religion.  It  was  foreshadowed  in 
these  words  of  our  text  and  many  others  of 
Jesus,  especially  in  his  later  life.  The  thought 
behind  it  and  through  it  was  that  of  the  abund- 
ant life  —  natural  and  abundant :  "  If  any  man 
shall  enter  in,  he  shall  be  saved,  and  shall  go  in 
and  out,  and  shall  find  pasture  . 
I  am  come  that  ye  might  have  life  and  that 
ye  might  have  it  more  abundantly." 

I  know  that  there  is  a  cheap  sort  of  piety, 
a  sort  of  self-disclosure  and  self-humiliation, 
which  is  abhorent  to  all  of  us.  But  it  does 
seem  to  me  that  we  should  hold  our  religious 
faith  with  at  least  as  much  vigor  and  frankness 
as  we  do,  for  instance,  our  political  faith. 
Here  are  a  man  and  his  wife  celebrating  their 
golden  wedding  anniversary.  When  you  go 
into  their  home,  though  age  is  coming  on,  they 
beam  with  joy.  They  show  you  the  old  pic- 
tures —  the  farm  where  they  were  born,  their 
first  modest  house;  they  get  down  the  photo- 
graphs of  their  children,  and  tell  the  accom- 
plishments of  each.  They  are  not  ashamed  of 
what  they  have  done ;  the  abundant  nature  of 
their  lives  is  written  in  their  faces.  And  what 
we  know  is  that  back  of  it  all  there  was  work, 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  45 

and  care,  and  doubt,  and  ambition,  and  culture, 
and  enlightenment.  Nor  should  it  be  other- 
wise with  religion.  Religion  is  what  we  are  — 
more  even  than  the  measure  of  a  golden  wed- 
ding anniversary.  It  is  worthy  of  ambitious 
and  clear-sighted  effort.  Patience  and  humil- 
ity are  absolutely  evil  unless  linked  with  vigor 
and  knowledge  and  direction.  It  was  Jesus 
who  said,  ''  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  like  unto 
a  man  seeking  goodly  pearls  (the  good  life  is  a 
pearl)  and  having  found  one  of  great  price,  he 
went  and  sold  all  that  he  had  and  bought  it." 
It  was  so  good  that  a  man  would  be  justified 
in  seeking  it  with  all  the  zest  of  a  merchant  of 
gems ;  it  was  as  fascinating  not  only  as  a  trade 
or  profession,  but  as  the  romance  of  priceless 
jewels.  It  was  a  worthy  and  justifiable  and 
manly  thing. 

It  is  a  pity  that  there  are  a  good  many  men 
in  the  Church  today  who,  if  Jesus  were  on 
earth,  would  counsel  him  to  go  a  little  more 
slowly !  Jesus  himself  was  the  most  upstand- 
ing of  men.  You  cannot  imagine  him  as  being 
afraid  of  anybody  or  anything.  Kind  and  con- 
siderate? Yes.  But  unafraid.  His  step  was 
almost  —  gay.  His  touch  was  as  light  as  a 
child's  caress.  His  spirit  was  rich  and  whole- 
some and  forward-looking.  In  a  word,  and 
this  is  an  interesting  fact  when  you  come  to 
think  about  it,  Jesus  acknowledged  no  sense  of 


46  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

sm  m  himself.  We  may  even  accept  the  tradi- 
tional explanation  that  Jesus  was  different,  but 
it  nevertheless  follows  that  one  of  the  best  ways 
to  ruin  the  efficiency  of  the  religious  life  is  to 
dwell  on  the  sinfulness  of  our  human  nature,  or 
to  affect  a  theological  humiliation  which  is  me- 
chanical in  the  very  nature  of  the  occasion  and 
the  life  we  are  living.  May  it  not  be  that  the 
thing  for  us  to  do  is  not  to  worry  over  our  sins, 
but  to  pray  for  some  of  the  confidence  of  Jesus. 
In  line  with  this,  the  religion  of  our  age  will 
be  inclusive  and  comprehensive.  Edwin  Mark- 
ham  has  a  fine  figure  which  symbolizes  what  I 
have  in  mind : 

"  He  drew  a  circle  that  left  me  out  — 
Heretic,  rebel,  a  thing  to  flout. 
But  love  and  I  had  the  wit  to  win ; 
We  drew  a  circle  that  took  him  in." 

Every  circle  is  imaginary  except  the  circle 
that  includes  all  humanity  and  total  reality. 
Thus  the  ancients  used  a  circle  to  denote  God. 
This  is  shown  by  the  wholesomeness  of  some  of 
our  practical  efforts.  We  are  beginning  to  see 
this  in  our  prison  work.  We  used  to  think  it 
enough  if  we  put  men  behind  the  bars.  We 
cut  their  hair,  put  a  striped  suit  on  them,  and 
humiliated  them  by  locksteps  and  other  in- 
genious indignities  —  only  to  find  that,  in  the 
end,  when  they  got  out,  they  were  a  thousand 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  47 

times  more  the  children  of  darkness  than  when 
we  put  them  in ;  and  the  community  suffered. 
What  we  are  finding  out  is  that  we  must  include 
them  in  a  very  vital  way  in  the  total  scheme  of 
redemption,  and  that  the  long,  long  way  of  lov- 
ing purpose  only  can  win.  We  agree  with  Her- 
bert Spencer  when  he  says,  "  No  one  can  be  per- 
fectly free  till  all  are  free.  No  one  can  be  per- 
fectly moral  till  all  are  moral.  No  one  can 
be  perfectly  happy  till  all  are  happy." 

I  think  that  you  may  have  guessed  that  the 
kind  of  inclusiveness  of  which  I  speak  is  not  re- 
lated to  a  mere  spirit  of  toleration.  In  fact  I 
think  it  would  be  intolerant  of  many  things. 
You  may  have  heard  of  the  man  who  spread 
himself  out  so  much  that  he  was  pretty  thin 
everywhere !  It  isn't  that  kind  of  inclusive- 
ness. It  is  a  matter  only  for  constructive  work 
and  loyal  men. 

There  are  in  fact  just  two  approaches  to 
every  problem :  one  is  partial,  immediate,  short- 
sighted, authoritative ;  the  other  is  long-drawn- 
out,  cooperative,  entailing  much  consideration, 
demanding  faith  in  its  highest  sense.  Under 
the  former,  master  and  slave  is  a  good  arrange- 
ment of  human  society  rather  than  long  drawn- 
out  labor  and  capital  contests ;  paternalism  in 
government  is  better  than  the  everlasting 
struggles  of  democracy ;  war  is  better  than  di- 
plomacy and  arbitration.     It  makes  great  use 


48  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

of  fear,  and  asks  for  immediate  results.  It 
lacks  faith  in  human  nature,  and  is  superficial 
in  its  thinking.  It  has  about  it  all  the  ear- 
marks of  the  self-sufficient,  comfort-loving,  dog- 
in-the-manger  attitude  of  some  fathers  we  re- 
member with  instinctive  affection,  but  from 
whose  roof-trees  we  were  mighty  glad  to  escape. 
It  regards  humanity  as  a  perpetual  child.  It 
gilds  itself  with  a  good  many  platitudes,  while 
stifling  the  free  spirit  and  self-development  of 
the  individual.  It  tells  the  master  to  be 
"  good  "  to  the  slave,  and  tells  the  child  that 
the  whipping  hurts  the  father  a  good  deal 
more  than  the  child,  which  we  perhaps  all  have 
heard  and  had  our  doubts  about !  It  is  full  of 
all  casuistry  and  pious  dissimulation,  side- 
stepping the  real  issue,  which  is  the  free  and 
full-rounded  development  of  the  individual 
spirit  in  cooperation  with  all  other  free  spirits. 

The  second  approach  is  only  for  brave  men 
and  men  of  faith.  Nearly  all  the  sins  we  know 
have  grown  out  of  the  great  sin  —  lack  of 
faith;  faith  in  ourselves,  faith  in  our  fellows, 
and,  ultimately,  faith  in  God.  There  are  no 
short  cuts  to  character,  and  Christianity  is 
character  plus  —  character  in  the  light  of  the 
long,  patient,  inclusive  purposes  of  God. 

Even  at  that,  the  second  approach  is  more 
satisfactory  in  the  end.  The  swimmer  jumps 
off  into  the  cold  water,  and  at  first  he  feels  the 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  49 

chill,  and  all  the  good  things  he  has  ever  heard 
about  swimming  drop  to  zero.  But  after  a  few 
healthy  strokes  his  body  reacts,  a  warm  glow 
suffuses  his  body,  and  off  he  moves  in  an  ecstacy 
of  delight.  What  we  need  most  of  all  in  our 
religion  is  the  will  to  jump  off,  to  trust  our- 
selves, that  we  have  the  power  to  re-act  —  what 
someone  has  called  "  the  will  to  believe."  Any 
one  can  learn  the  strokes. 

And  just  because  we  have  had  so  little  faith  in 
ourselves,  we  have  little  faith  in  each  other ; 
and  then,  to  paraphrase  the  words  of  Jesus,  if 
we  do  not  believe  in  ourselves  and  each  other, 
whom  we  have  seen,  how  shall  we  believe  in  God, 
whom  we  have  not  seen?  Jesus  believed  this 
and  taught  it  as  no  other  man  ever  did.  He 
saw  in  every  man  the  germ  divine: 

"  For  why  should  I  pronounce  his  doom, 
When  in  my  brother's  heart  may  bloom 
The  eternal  flower.'*  " 

And,  finally,  our  religion  will  be  forward- 
mavmg,  instinct  with  the  finest  sensibilities. 
The  genuineness  of  Jesus  is  to  be  found 
just  here,  in  its  leading  processes.  There  are 
three  standards  of  life  —  and  perhaps  not  an- 
other. First,  law.  It  is  the  minimum.  It  is 
the  swaddling  clothes  in  which  cooperative  soci- 
ety  begins   its   walk   together.     It   deals    only 


60  MODERNIST  STUDIES 

with  outstanding  crudities  and  criminalities. 
It  is  negative  and  provides  penalties. 

Then  there  is  morality.  The  word  morality 
comes  from  mos,  meaning  custom,  the  plural  of 
which  is  mores.  It  consists  of  the  little  nice- 
ties that  people  do  over  and  above  the  law. 
But  it  always  remains  largely  a  matter  of 
courtesy  or  nicety;  it  has  in  it  no  grand  pas- 
sion. Whatever  is  customary  is  right.  If  it 
were  customary  for  every  second  father  to  cut 
off  the  toe  of  every  male  child,  in  obeying  that 
habit  a  man  would  be  moral.  Where  polygamy 
is  the  custom,  a  plurality  of  wives  would  be  en- 
tirely moral.  It  is  to  be  said,  however,  that  the 
general  rule  of  morality  is  something  higher 
and  better  than  law. 

Above  this,  of  course,  is  the  realm  of  re- 
ligion. It  comprehends  our  ideal  and  aspira- 
tions. It  is  filial  in  symbol,  the  picture  in 
Christianity  being  that  of  a  good  father  and 
a  good  son.  It  assumes  that  there  is  "  one 
divine  event  toward  which  the  whole  creation 
moves,"  and  it  believes  in  the  capacity  of  men 
to  achieve  goodness,  and  that  the  proper  in- 
stincts are  naturally  resident  within  us.  It  has 
no  penalties  except  the  long  penalties  of  life 
and  character.  Religion,  in  a  word,  is  made 
up  of  the  directing  forces  of  life,  and  its  place 
is  never  at  the  tag-end  of  the  procession.  It  is 
clearly  not  enough  that  the  product  of  religion 


IN  THE  LIFE  OF  JESUS  51 

should  be  the  same  from  year  to  year,  genera- 
tion to  generation,  century  to  century.  Re- 
Hgion  has  to  do  with  the  everlasting  evolution 
and  development  of  human  life.  Nothing  less 
than  real  progress  will  suffice. 

In  the  best  sense  in  which  religion  is  known, 
Jesus  is  its  epitome.  His  moral  grandeur,  his 
beautiful  spirituality,  his  dauntless  courage,  his 
forward  moving  step,  his  sure  apprehension  of 
life  in  its  underlying  realities,  his  love  of  life, 
all  are  unmistakable  signs  of  his  leadership. 
And  unto  himself  he  calls  us. 


A  LIBERAL  FAITH 

A  liberal  faith  is  a  great  faith ;  it  constantly, 
like  the  chick,  breaks  the  old  shell,  and  walks 
into  new  life.  But,  mind  you,  it  takes  the  es- 
sence of  the  old  life  with  it,  leaving  only  the 
shell.  A  truly  liberal  faith  leaves  nothing  of 
any  value  behind.  It  is  not  some  mere  tangent, 
a  starting  point,  a  divergence  that  means  an- 
other sect.  "  These  things  you  ought  to  have 
done,"  said  Jesus,  "  and  not  to  have  left  the 
other  undone."  A  man  who  calls  himself  a 
liberal  and  slinks  back  out  of  sight  in  the  face 
of  some  crisis,  is  not  a  liberal ;  he  is  only  a 
coward.  A  man  who  calls  himself  a  liberal  and 
lives  an  openly  bad  life,  is  not  a  liberal;  he  is 
only  a  libertine.  If  a  man  calls  himself  a  lib- 
eral and  you  can  only  tell  that  he  is  by  the 
number  of  things  he  does  not  believe,  he  is  not 
a  liberal ;  he  is  only  a  doubter.  A  liberal  is  one 
whose  blood  is  growing  warmer,  whose  charity 
is  growing  broader,  whose  vision  is  growing 
clearer;  who,  in  the  last  analysis,  is  deeply  in 
love  with  life. 


52 


